Scott Taunton: attacked plans to shift some radio services to DAB while leaving others on FM. Photograph: Martin Godwin

The UTV Radio chief executive, Scott Taunton, today warned that digital switchover risked creating a "two-tier" environment in which small local radio stations left behind on analogue would cease to exist.

Taunton, whose company owns TalkSport and 14 local stations, attacked plans to shift national and large regional services to digital audio broadcasting (DAB) while leaving smaller local stations and community broadcasters on FM.

The UTV Radio chief executive said not enough investigation had been done of a rival technology, DAB+, which would have the capacity to transfer all stations to digital, including smaller local commercial broadcasters.

"It will create a two-tier system," Taunton told the House of Lords communications committee's inquiry into digital TV and radio switchover.

"It's like keeping analogue television services while moving the vast bulk of services on to digital television, and expecting consumers to come out of Sky or their digital service and back to analogue to listen to them."

"There are a number of avenues that we don't believe have been fully investigated at this stage. We don't believe there is a significant benefit in rushing through the legislation and tying ourselves to a DAB platform that gives a digital future to some stations but leaves 100 or 120 commercial stations on AM and FM," he added.

"We operate FM radio services – Tower FM in Bolton and Radio Wave in Blackpool. They serve their communities very well but there is not the capacity for them on the [DAB] multiplex. Under the current proposals they would be left behind on FM, and in all likelihood these audiences would be eroded to the point where they would not be viable in the future."

"The whole world is going digital. For radio to remain analogue in a digital world is not viable," Myers told the committee.

But radio analyst Grant Goddard painted a bleak history of digital radio in the UK, listing some of the 14 digital-only stations that have closed in the UK since DAB radio launched in 1999, including ITN News, Primetime Radio and Capital Disney.

"They failed to attract a sufficiently large audience. Not one single digital station [in the UK] has managed an operating profit," said Goddard.

"The commercial radio industry mantra was 'build it, they will come'. There was no massive marketing, no huge expenditure. Throughout the early years of DAB the commercial radio industry wanted to believe it was just around the corner, that you just had to hang on and wait. But they never actually did come."